Once upon a time, aerodynamics was an unknown science, and automakers apparently labored under the idea that "If you make it real curvy, like a nekkid woman, it will go fast."
Today on the road, driving back from my errands with the top down on the Beemer and a rack of yummy-smelling ribs and two six-packs of Mash House Hoppy Hour IPA perched in the passenger seat, I passed in short order an MGB and a Jaguar E-type, both heading in the other direction on the twisty backroad I'd taken to avoid traffic. Their occupants waved. I waved back. In a world full of people-moving, gas-efficient, cupholder-laden pods it was pleasant to connect, if only for a fraction of a second, with others who were out to move nothing but their souls...
I have never seen anything like it ! Reminds one of buck rodgers(comic and serial not T.V.)
ReplyDeleteThat's gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteWay back in the weeds at our race car shop in Paris in 1957 was an old Delahaye, shaped much like the car in your picture...
ReplyDeleteIt takes less HP to get speed out of a teardrop than from a cube, for sure. Those early notions of aerodynamics weren't all that bad.
Remember Art Arfons' "Green Dragon" jet-powered thingummie? It had a teardrop body with a really long tail. "Streamlined". Then came Professor Kamm, who found via wind-tunnel that if you cut off the tail when the cross-sectional area was about 1/3 of the main body, that was all the streamlined tail you needed.
Lotsa discussions on the subject. The definitive comment came from somebody like Augie Pabst or maybe Mark Donahue: "The length of the tail of a race car is inversely proportional to the force applied by the following race car."
:), Art
Looks like a cartoon car to me. Call me old-fashioned, but this is more my idea of a sports car:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.icbc.com/insurance/downloads/
800X600J/2000/200059CO.JPG
It does feel good when someone waves at you these days. Don't see much of that anymore, especially if their behind tinted glass.
ReplyDeleteWe're a closed society!
" Looks like a cartoon car to me. Call me old-fashioned,"
ReplyDeleteOld-fashioned? Your new-fangled vintage 'Vette is but a sprout compared to a '37 Talbot-Lago!
I have what Enzo Ferrari once referred to as "America's only sports car". A flat-fender Willys jeep. It's aerodynamic: moves all kindsa air!
ReplyDeleteActually I have 3, but only one currently runs.
-Tracy
The Talbot-Lago is older than the Corvette, but the 'Vette had more appeal to most people of my generation.
ReplyDeleteOur idea of an older sports car would be something like this:
http://www.classic-carauction.com/
onsite_auctions/LOT%20274%201934%
20FORD%20ROADSTER.JPG
Thinking
ReplyDeleteWhitney Wolverine.....
I'm now lusting after that car. Those curves! I don't know if I want to drive it or F*** it.
ReplyDeleteTracy,
ReplyDeleteEnzo Ferrari also got his ass handed to him on a plate, for three straight years, by Ford.
In an era of bland box sedans, it's nice to see the occasional car on the road that was never meant for anything other than to look good.
Didn't Clive Cussler write about a Talbot-Lago in one of his Dirk Pitt novels?
ReplyDeleteDamn nice car! Reminds me of a curvy woman...or one recenly pictured in her bikini not too long ago!
HEEHEE couldn't resist! Sorry Tam!